Mediagazer: Video Start-up ‘Big Think’ Finds Profitability and Expands Business Model (Andy Plesser/Beet.TV)

7:15 PM ET, December 13, 2010

Top News:

Time Warner Views Netflix as a Fading Star — For the past year, executives at big media companies have watched Netflix with growing resentment — for its success in delivering movies and television shows via the Internet, for its stock price nearly quadrupling, for its chief executive …

Discussion: DNAINFO.com, Company Town, Susan Crawford blog, SAI, VentureBeat, Techland, Electronista, Fast Company, New York Observer, The Consumerist, Engadget, GMSV and MediaPost Raw, more at Techmeme »

David Carr / New York Times:

WikiLeaks Taps Power of the Press — Has WikiLeaks changed journalism forever? — Perhaps. Or maybe it was the other way around. — Think back to 2008, when WikiLeaks simply released documents that suggested the government of Kenya had looted its country. The follow-up in the mainstream media was decidedly muted.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Reuters and The Wire

Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:
Judiciary panel to take up Espionage Act, legal options against WikiLeaks

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Thanks:gnagesh

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Rivals Say Google Plays Favorites — Search Giant Displays Its Own Health, Shopping, Local Content Ahead of Links to Competing Sites — Google Inc. increasingly is promoting some of its own content over that of rival websites when users perform an online search, prompting competing sites to cry foul.

Discussion: Search Engine Land, Google Public Policy Blog, New York Magazine, PC Magazine, Digits, PC World, CJR, Screenwerk, Between the Lines Blog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, SAI, broadstuff, Tech Report, Financial Times and MediaPost Raw, more at Techmeme »

David Kaplan / paidContent:

IAB Head Rothenberg Named Time Inc.'s Digital Chief — This is probably the biggest change during Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX) CEO Jack Griffin's three-month tenure: Randall Rothenberg, the president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, has been named EVP, Chief Digital Officer of Time Inc., a new position at the company.

Discussion: Media Decoder, MediaMemo, Mixed Media, IAB, Folio, AdAge, ClickZ, Bloomberg, mediabistro.com, minonline.com, Post Tech and MediaPost Raw

Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Time Inc. Opening Up On Digital Initiatives

Discussion: paidContent, FishbowlNY, digiday:DAILY and Mediaite, Thanks:edmundlee

Clay Shirky / Nieman Journalism Lab:

What will 2011 bring for journalism? Clay Shirky predicts widespread disruptions for syndication — Editor's Note: To mark the end of the year, we at the Lab decided to ask some of the smartest people we know what they thought 2011 would bring for journalism.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online

Daniel Kennedy / The Firewall:

The Real Lessons Of Gawker's Security Mess — Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife — Gossip site Gawker has experienced a large data breach whose scale fully came to light Sunday. The group that calls itself Gnosis claimed and provided evidence of responsibility …

Discussion: Slate, Duo Security, Financial Times, Mixed Media, MediaMemo, Guardian, Gawker, Media Decoder, New York Observer, Yahoo! News, Felix Salmon, The Next Web, Lifehacker, MediaPost, BlogPost, New York Magazine and ReadWriteWeb, more at Techmeme »

Jason Salzman / The Big Media Blog:

Bloggers and legacy media deserve fair credit for stories — In a public discussion Wed. of media coverage of the 2010 election, The Denver Post's political editor Curtis Hubbard said if The Post reports on a news story that's appeared previously in another outlet, the newspaper is committed …

Jason Salzman / The Huffington Post: Why a Scoop Still Matters

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Condé Nast Gets Ready to Go Shopping, Adds $500 Million and an Ex-Yahoo — Anyone have anything they want to sell to Condé Nast? The publisher is officially in shopping mode: It has hired an M&A guy and raised $500 million in cash to get him started.

Discussion: PR Newswire, Multichannel, New York Magazine, VentureBeat, Mediaweek, SiliconANGLE, paidContent, Noted, SAI, New York Observer and bizjournals

Warren Watson / SABEW:

SABEW survey: Freelancers make $25,000 to $30,000 — Freelance business journalists in North America make an average of $25,000 to $30,000 a year, and two out of every five were laid off, according to an informal survey conducted by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

Discussion: Poynter and BusinessJournalism.org …

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / Digits:

Internet Now as Popular as TV, Survey Shows — The average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching television, according to research being released today by Forrester. — To technophiles, it might seem strange to think of people ever watching TV more than they surfed the Web.

Discussion: Forrester Blogs, Fast Company, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Mashable!, Computerworld, GigaOM, The Next Web and SiliconANGLE, more at Techmeme »

Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:

Video Start-up ‘Big Think’ Finds Profitability and Expands Business Model — New York-based Big Think, which launched in early 2008 with seed capital from Lawrence Summers*, President Obama's Director of the National Economic Council, and other investors including Peter Thiel …

Discussion: WebNewser

Elizabeth Jensen / New York Times:

Public Broadcaster Is to Sell Current, a Trade Publication — Current, the newspaper that has covered the public broadcasting business every two weeks for three decades, is leaving the hands of its longtime owner, WNET.org, the New York City public broadcaster.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, On Media's Blog and Poynter

Crain's New York:

AOL tries a do-it-yourself reinvention — Two months after reports first appeared that AOL was looking to merge with Yahoo in a bold bid to speed up its turnaround, the Manhattan-based Web veteran has abandoned its quest, according to an industry insider with knowledge of the situation.

Discussion: SAI and Noted

Lois Beckett / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The great paywall debate: Will The New York Times' new model work? — Editor's Note: We're wrapping up 2010 by asking some of the smartest people in journalism what the new year will bring. — Many of their predictions centered on what may be the most anticipated business-model shift of 2011 …

Discussion: Poynter

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Web Focus Helps Revitalize The Atlantic — WASHINGTON — How did a 153-year-old magazine — one that first published the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and gave voice to the abolitionist and transcendentalist movements — reinvent itself for the 21st century?

Discussion: GigaOM, Mediaite, The Consumerist, Screenwerk, Fast Company, Noted, On Media's Blog, New York Observer, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Wire, Tech Report, Magazines Online and The Daily Dish

James Surowiecki / New Yorker:

GROUPON CLIPPING — The history of the Internet is, in part, a series of opportunities missed: the major record labels let Apple take over the digital-music business; Blockbuster refused to buy Netflix for a mere fifty million dollars; Excite turned down the chance to acquire Google for less than a million dollars.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Wall Street Journal:

News Corp. Crams for Classes — Media Giant Faces Task of Honing Education Strategy — With two moves over two weeks, News Corp. has become one of the biggest players in the increasingly crowded field of corporate investors chasing the next technology to transform American education.

Discussion: New York Observer and FishbowlNY